BLOG: Why the $10 Bill Actually Is Important

KATIE PICKRELL

I couldn’t sit still for long enough to watch and comprehend the entire GOP debate, but I was able to watch segments of it recapped throughout the news. One of the less important questions of the debate and possibly the least important of all that involved women’s rights mentioned a woman’s face on the next version of the $10 bill.

What was important, however, was the inability to answer the question. It was as if most of the candidates, including the only woman candidate Carly Fiorina, couldn’t think of a woman worthy enough to put where a man’s face has always reigned.

Among the answers that were brought about were Mike Huckabee’s wife, Ben Carson’s mother and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Even taking opinion out of this situation, a lot of the candidates insinuated that no woman in American history has ever done anything so impactful that they believe she could be placed on a piece of paper U.S. currency.

Jeb Bush even said to take the question to the Internet and let everyone else decide. Prior to that, he was the genius who suggested putting a foreign head of government on the bill. “It’s probably illegal, but what the heck,” Bush said, adding that Thatcher restored the United Kingdom to greatness– though even that’s debatable to many, particularly to many in the UK.

Donald Trump said he’d put his daughter, Ivanka, on the bill even though she has literally nothing to do with American politics and is not yet deceased.

Even worse, Fiorina said she wouldn’t want any woman on the bill. She defended her statement in saying that putting a woman on the bill wouldn’t help women or change our history.

The statement released by Fiorina is enough to write a book on in my opinion. Because she believes that changing history is impossible, she’s denying the idea of progress. I know that the $10 bill might not seem like a big deal, but it is. Historically, no woman has ever been on a piece of commonly used paper currency. It might not be outright sexist, but it definitely says something about where women stand in political terms of this country.

Stating that women don’t need to be treated as a special interest group kind of made me disregard her entire argument. Yes, women are better off now than we have been throughout history. But, no, we aren’t on paper currency, we aren’t holding high offices at the same rate as men, we aren’t always making the same money for the same work and, now, we don’t always have full rights to healthcare.

To state that women can be disregarded in terms of ensuring equal rights in this day and age is obtuse. To hear it coming from such a large group of people is even worse. The fact that the only woman in the group also didn’t just deny the plight of women, but rather encouraged the idea that it isn’t a real thing, is just flat out wrong.

So, though the argument on the $10 bill may not have been such a big deal, the response that American women aren’t that important definitely was. If you are interested, though, the frontrunners for their place on the 10 include Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Betty Friedan, Harriet Tubman and Rosa Parks. Although, since being an American is no longer an obligation according to Bush, I’d like to add Catherine the Great to the list. Maybe, since Trump said death isn’t a necessity either, we could even use Oprah.